Why Agencies Can Finally Stop Copying Each Other

This reset is not happening because the industry feels like it. It is happening because it has to. Four shifts make the old interchangeability impossible:

The democratisation of output
AI tools are now widely available. Technically high-quality outputs, film, design, copy, can be produced by almost anyone. Ad spots with serious production value? Achievable with the right toolchain. The old agency advantage, built largely on craft and production quality, is at least partly history. The defining question is no longer “Can I make it?”, but “Should I make it?” Value moves from production to curation, from execution to strategic judgment.

The explosion of channels
At the same time, brands have to serve countless touchpoints: personalised, contextual, geographically adapted. That volume cannot be managed with traditional agency structures. To keep up, you need scale and automation. And that requires a completely different operating model than crafting a cultural moment or a zeitgeist-driven campaign.

The increasing complexity of the work
Modern briefs are no longer production orders. They are open-ended problems with real consequences. You cannot solve them without organisational, technological, and creative expertise working together. No single “agency type” can cover that end-to-end anymore.

Cultural fragmentation
Brands now need to speak inside diverse subcultures, from hip-hop and gaming to streetwear and niche sports. Creators have direct access to these communities. Generic marketing reaches no one. This demands cultural embeddedness and authenticity, which specialised agencies are the only ones able to deliver credibly.

These four factors push agencies toward specialisation. If you do a bit of everything, you will not be excellent at any of it. If you focus, you can build real depth, and that is what makes you collaboration-ready in the first place.

Thomas Knüwer, Chief Creative Officer at Accenture Song, sums it up in the upcoming episode of “What’s Next Creatives”, the spin-off of What’s Next Agencies in collaboration with Campaign (releasing on 24 February): the industry is moving from competing to collaborating. Because agencies are no longer redundant. They are increasingly complementary. Suddenly, it makes sense to work with agencies whose profile is fundamentally different from your own.
This shift is structural. The agency landscape is reorganising itself not just cosmetically, but into genuinely different business models. According to Thomas, three types are emerging:

Horizontal creativity
Agencies built for scale. They need to produce volume across the channel explosion, with endless touchpoints, while still remaining personalised and contextual. AI plays a central role here, enabling automation and multiplication. These shops come from breadth.

Vertical creativity
Agencies focused on craft excellence and taste. They create cultural moments, curate zeitgeist, and give brands a voice. This is not about volume, it is about meaning, tone, and empathetic bridges to consumers. They pick a narrower set of domains and go deep.

System integrators
Agencies that connect both worlds. They can deliver end-to-end because they combine horizontal breadth with vertical excellence, often strengthened through acquisitions, for example Kolle Rebbe at Accenture. These businesses require a steering creative intelligence: people who know which kind of creativity is needed when. For genuine zeitgeist moments, they often collaborate with specialised partners, because tastemaker talent gravitates toward focused boutiques.

Out of this complementarity comes a new market dynamic: collaboration becomes feasible. A horizontally structured agency can partner with a vertical specialist without cannibalising each other’s offerings. A system integrator can work with a Dutch creative agency or a Polish experiential marketing agency because each is set up differently.

This is not a theoretical framework. It is already happening. These new constellations solve complex problems together, not as rivals, but as complementary partners.

That shift also changes the culture. When colleagues move to other agencies, it is no longer automatically seen as a loss. It can even be a gain, because their strengths might be a better match there, and you may collaborate in the future rather than compete. That is a radically different attitude from the old competitive culture where every departure felt like a threat.

This diversification is not a risk. It is liberation. Agencies no longer have to be good at everything and fight for every pitch. They can concentrate on what they genuinely excel at, and find partners for the rest.

But it demands clarity about your own model.

If you are horizontal, optimise for scale, technology, and efficiency.
If you are vertical, invest in craft excellence, cultural sensitivity, and tone.
If you are a system integrator, you need the ability to orchestrate both, and to know precisely when each mode is required.

Here is the uncomfortable truth: many agencies still do not have that clarity. They oscillate between models, trying to be a little bit of everything, and end up back in the old interchangeability. Diversification only works if agencies actually become different, not only in their external messaging, but in structure, processes, and offering.

The upside is clear: a sharply defined profile does not just attract partners. It creates a new kind of relevance for clients. Thomas Knüwer describes the briefs he wants: open problems like, “There are too many delays at the airport, what do we do?” Or, “We built a new car, how does it speak?”

You cannot solve briefs like that with one agency type alone. They require different competencies, which means collaboration between complementary partners.
The industry is moving from output-centred work to problem-solving. From “Who makes the best print ad?” to “Who solves the problem most intelligently?” And these problems are complex enough to demand different strengths.

Agencies that understand this and sharpen their profile accordingly will not sit in every pitch. But they will find the right partners, and together they will solve assignments that no single shop could handle alone.

That is the real opportunity of diversification: it turns us from competitors into collaborators. Finally.